QLFC Finals 1 - What the Stars Give the Planets Steal
by corvusdraconis
Summary: Years after the end of the Second Wizarding War, Hermione Granger finds a letter that changes everything she thought she knew.


**QLFC: Finals Round One — Pairing Diversity**

Main Prompt: Bellatrix Lestrange and Hermione Granger

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Beater 1

Optional Prompts:

1\. (word) planets

9\. (atmosphere) w eather. ambient-mixer light- thunderstorm

12\. (word) ink

 **Beta Party:** fluffpanda, Moka-girl, Serpentine13, Story-Please, Sahanine (Betas for everyone!)

 **What the Stars Give, the Planets Steal**

Hermione Granger sat staring out the window of Grimmauld Place, her hair wild and damp with raindrops from the thunderstorm. Water dripped down from her hair and trickled down her face, landing with an audible splat onto the parchment in front of her. Luckily, the ink refused to smear thanks to the inherent magic layered into both the parchment and the sanguine, crimson ink.

Hermione glared out into the storm, watching the lightning flash and feeling the boom of thunder shake the house. Tears ran down her face, but they joined with the rivulets of rain, indiscernible from each other save the taste of salt as they passed her mouth.

The soft impact of a blanket fell upon her shoulders. A voice, far more gentle than she ever thought to hear towards her, spoke.

"Mistress will catch a cold sitting in the dark," the voice uttered with a soft croon. "Kreacher made Mistress her favourite tea."

One silver teacup, polished until it shone like a star, held the sienna ambrosia she had always loved. Despite all the bitterness Kreacher had shown her before, he had obviously paid attention far more than anyone ever gave the old house-elf credit for.

"Thank you, Kreacher," Hermione said, her voice cracking even as she attempted to keep it neutral.

The old house-elf stiffened, perhaps in surprise at the words of thanks. He silently stoked the fire in the fireplace into a warmer blaze, filling the room with a touch of ambient light and an burst of heat. Thunder answered the sharp and telltale crack of lightning. The sky flashed again, filling the room with a sharp white glare that exposed Hermione's wild and unruly mane of hair.

Her hair was the darkest black of space. It sucked in light like a black hole, refusing to yield and allow one photon to escape.

As the lightning flashed again, it sharpened the contours of Hermione's thinner cheekbones. One could have said the change in her features was due to the stress of war had her hair not turned a dark soot black that no dye could replicate. One might have said it was just the storm-light playing with the mind had Hermione's eyes not been a grey so distinct that they almost looked silver. Gone were brown eyes of her childhood. Gone were the honey strands of hair she had known all her life.

There was a sound that resembled a book dropping from a shelf, and Harry Potter stumbled out of the green flames of the floo, narrowly stepping out in time before the real fire attempted to lick his boots and curl around his trousers.

"Hermione," he breathed. He rushed up to her. He looked like he wanted to wrap his arms around her, but there was the slightest hesitation, and it stung.

Hermione stared back sharply, her grey eyes boring into him.

"Am I too tainted for you, now?" Hermione asked bitterly.

Harry balked for a split second before he wrapped her in his arms in a tight hug. "No! Never! _Never_ , do you hear me? I just… for a minute you looked—"

Hermione looked down at the parchment with a bitter curl starting to tug at the corners of her mouth. "Like my mother."

Harry swallowed hard but nodded.

"I always wondered why I never truly looked like my parents," Hermione mused with a humorous laugh. "No one in the Granger family has this wild mane of hair."

Hermione tapped the parchment with her finger, pushing it towards Harry. The messy-haired wizard looked at her for permission, and she tilted her head and shook it.

"I've tried tearing it, burning it, soaking it, crying over it, and willing it to pieces, but none of it worked," Hermione sighed. "You might as well read it."

Harry nodded grimly and picked up the parchment and began to read.

-o-o-o-o-o-

 _My Dearest Daughter,_

 _If you are reading this, my radiant love, then I am dead, possibly by my own hand. The magic that I invoked to protect you was sealed in my blood and that of your father. Only our combined death would have released the spell I used to protect you from those who would have used you as a tool, stolen your smile, and turned you into something as insane as I feel my own thoughts becoming. Darkness is creeping into my own thoughts as I write this._

 _We are, my daughter, women of the Ancient and Noble House of Black. Our line stretches back into antiquity, but our line comes with price. It is a price I hoped to spare you when I cast the spell to save you from not only your family but so many other, darker things. I pray the stars and planets align and grant my wish to keep you safe._

 _I am not sure when you will read this, and I can imagine that in the future, should I meet you, I will not know you for who you are. I can feel you being erased from my mind as the blood seals the covenant. I write this as my mind is still my own in hopes that one day you will understand._

 _In our family, my daughter, we are often expected to do things to keep our line pure. It is seldom about love, but it was love that created you. Your father and I were madly, deeply in love. From our childhood, we loved each other, though we knew little of what that meant. I was older, and he was younger, but not so much that it was unnatural. It was… expected, even encouraged for us to love each other. It was better that, the family believes, than marry into some family with suspiciously obscure breeding._

 _We had such dreams. Our dreams included you, always. We planned for the future. We believed that with our love, it would be enough, but we were wrong._

 _Your father was disowned from our family. He left the house he had grown up in, supposedly choosing friends over blood. I knew the truth, however. The family didn't know about you, yet. In leaving, he protected you from being seen from some very powerful people. He loved you more than some entitlement and inheritance. He begged me to keep you safe, telling me that the world wasn't safe for you, yet, and I knew he was telling me the truth. The war is coming. I can feel it in my bones._

 _The lure of the rising Dark Lord calls like a siren song, and I know, if I cling to you and try to hold you close, he will have you turned into his instrument. He will raise you as a weapon. He will turn you into a murderer. I know it, because he has done the same to me, and only my Occlumency has saved the tatters of my screaming sanity and the memory of you._

 _You, Eridani Hermione Black, were born in the midst of the thunderstorm. You were born when the waters of heaven rained down upon the parched earth and brought forth flowers in the midst of September. You were named after the stars called the Heavenly Waters, and I pray those waters wash away my sins._

 _If you are reading this, I pray it is in a time when the war is done and gone. I pray that you are safe. It is because of our love for you that I invoked the blood magic to protect you before my sanity is completely gone._

 _By now, my dear Eridani, you will be hidden safely away with an adoptive couple in London. They are barren and wishing for a child. It is to them I entrust your life, my daughter. They are unmagical, and they will protect you as their own because they will never know you were anything but theirs. No one will suspect that you are Eridani Hermione Black. I can only hope that when your father takes you to them that he will have the strength to do what I could not. I could not bear to be the one to hand you over, my daughter. We have only known each other for close to a year now, but I dread not remembering your smile._

 _Even now, I feel the magic working in my mind, erasing you from me. You will be safe, my daughter. Your father and I will never know you existed, and as long as we are both alive, your secret will remain sealed. I pray you understand. I pray you will have a good life._

 _That this letter comes to you means that your father and I are now dead. I am sorry we could not be there to celebrate the moments of your life. Knowing your father, you probably came out Gryffindor. Your father has always been a rebel. There is a chance, you may have met him. I pray you have and that it was a positive moment. He, unlike me, has a chance to be on the right side of this growing war. He may not have known you as his daughter, but know that he loved you greatly._

 _Please do not think of us unkindly for what we had to do, Eridani. Your safety was more important than a few brief years on the run. It was more important to keep you safe than to have you found by the Dark Lord and turned to his service._

 _I feel the insanity stirring in my mind like worms crawling over a corpse. The worms eat away at my memories and turn me against my friends. All the while, the siren call of the Dark Lord lures me in closer, closer, closer! I long to feel the fangs of his glory sink into my body and have him take me as his own. This cannot be the fate for you, no! This is why you must be protected. This is why your heritage will be sealed away until I and your father are dead. It must be this way!_

 _Upon our deaths, the glamour that has been set into your blood will be released. The magic that has protected your identity will be gone. You will be Eridani Hermione Black, Heiress of the Ancient and Noble House of Black. The vault I and your father have filled for you will open for you alone. Place your hand upon the lock of the vault and it will open in combination with the key. Within, I have placed my diaries of all of what I am. Your father has placed the journals he has written detailing the truth about us and the family you never came to know. We leave you the majority of our inheritance and have arranged that money from our personal vaults slowly filter into yours. Money cannot make up for a life we have lost in giving you up, but I pray it will help you rebuild after the war I know is coming._

 _I enclose with this letter the key to your vault and the ring of your great, great, great grandmother that was my wedding ring before your father was disowned and the marriage was annulled. I enclose, too, the last photograph of us together as a family. Know that we loved you, my daughter. We loved you so much we had to let you go._

 _Your loving mother,_

 _Bellatrix Black (seal of the House of Black)_

-o-o-o-o-

"How did you find out, Harry?" Hermione's voice wavered in the dark of the room.

"I think the moment you read the letter," Harry explained, "your name changed on all the magical documents. Your name plate at the Ministry… I was standing in front of it when it changed from Hermione Granger to—"

"Eridani Hermione Black," Hermione finished.

Harry nodded. "Eridani H. Black."

"Want to know how I found the letter?"

"I am curious," Harry confessed.

"I got sick of Walburga yelling at me, so I went to turn her portrait over. I forgot, in the heat of the moment, that it had a permanent sticking charm on it," Hermione explained. "Turns out the charm wasn't permanent. It was waiting… for me and the right circumstances."

"The death of Bellatrix," Harry stated.

"And my father," Hermione said.

"But who—?" Harry started to ask.

Hermione placed an old photograph in Harry's hands.

Harry's eyes bugged out as his jaw dropped. "Bellatrix and my—"

Hermione turned to look out the window again, watching the rain. "Do you hate me, Harry?"

Harry shook his head adamantly, pulling Hermione to his chest and giving her a strong hug. "No! Never. It's shocking, but no! Don't you see? We both lost our fathers. Now, more than ever, we're family, Hermione. Now, you're just the best reason why the House of Black isn't so bad."

Hermione laughed, wiping the tears from her face.

"Ron's going to have a Kneazle," Harry said, rubbing her with his elbow. "He's off in Spain right now, tying up a Dark magic smuggling ring."

Hermione snorted. "He won't even notice," Hermione said. "Maybe he would if I turned myself into a giant chocolate frog."

Harry sputtered. "I take it you still keep telling him no about the marriage."

Hermione sighed. "Even before this I had doubts, Harry. Now, I'm going to need a lot of time to get things sorted in my head."

Harry nodded, understanding.

Hermione fingered the tarnished key in her hand. Already the delicate band of shining gems adorned her ring finger. It looked as though it belonged there. "I'm going to go visit my, erm, other vault today, Harry. Would you… like to come with me?"

Harry raised his head and smiled. "I'd be honoured."

"It's time I got to know my birth parents," Hermione said with a sad smile. "Maybe it's about time we both learned the truth about the Ancient and Noble House of Black."

Harry clasped her hand and nodded. "They couldn't have been all bad," he said after a moment.

Hermione arched a brow at him.

Harry smiled warmly. "My godfather was a Black, and so are you. That's all I need to know."

Hermione beamed at him as the clouds began to part outside. The storm was finally ending, and she knew it was only a matter of time before new flowers opened their petals to the sun.

-o-o-o-o-o-

 **A/N:** This was my take on Bellatrix's insanity. Bellatrix's last sane act was to protect her daughter from the future and herself. She knew the insanity was coming. She knew the Dark Lord would swallow her up. She also knew that if she held onto her daughter it would condemn her to a life she never wanted for her. Hermione's parents made a choice to protect her from the war. The irony was, in doing so, Bellatrix sealed the deal on her own descent into insanity. I hope you enjoyed this little short. It's one of my rare non-pairing stories, yet it did have the story of the love of two parents who desperately wanted to save their daughter from the war. As much as Bellatrix is a character many love to hate, I would like to think that something major had to happen to make her as insane as she was. It doesn't mean she was redeemable in the end for all the horrible things she did during the war. Perhaps, however, she was once sane. Maybe that sane version of Bellatrix Black did the one thing she could to save her daughter… from herself.


End file.
